The Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv holds one of the key documents related to the life of Taras Shevchenko—his birth certificate. This document was shown by the director of the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, Yaroslav Fayzulin, to the head of the Culture department of the Interfax-Ukraine agency, Olga Levkun.
The record was made in the metric book of the Church of St. John the Theologian in the village of Morintsy, Zvenigorodsky District, Kyiv Province. It records the birth of the future poet on February 25, 1814 (March 9 according to the new style).
Archivists note that metric books are important primary sources for historians and researchers, as they contain official records of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths. Such documents make it possible to reconstruct the biographies of historical figures and family histories.
In addition to Shevchenko’s birth record, the archive also contains other documents relating to his family. In particular, there are confessional records — church books recording parishioners.
Among these records is a mention of the family of Hryhorii Shevchenko, the father of the future poet. The document mentions his wife Kateryna and their children—Mykita, Taras, and Yosyp.
Historians explain that confession records were kept not only for church records. They were also used by the Russian Empire authorities to register the population and collect taxes, which is why they are of significant historical value today.
Taras Shevchenko was born into a peasant family in Morintsy, Cherkasy region. Despite a difficult childhood and early orphanhood, he became one of the key figures of Ukrainian culture — a poet, artist, and thinker whose work shaped new Ukrainian literature and became a symbol of national identity.
The archival document with the poet’s birth record is kept in the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine: f. 127, op. 1012, spr. 1378, ark. 695 zv.
https://interfax.com.ua/news/culture/1150203.html
According to Serbian Economist, Montenegrin Budva has been granted the right to host the 10th European Paragliding Championships in the precision landing discipline, which will take place from September 30 to October 7, 2028.
The decision was made at the 51st plenary session of the Paragliding Commission of the World Aviation Federation CIVL/FAI, which took place in Porto.
Montenegro’s competitor in the race to host the tournament was Kosovo.
The delegation of the Air Sports Union of Montenegro was led by its president, Zoran Lakić. In addition to presenting their bid for the European Championship, representatives of the union held talks with the leadership of the World Aviation Federation on further international programs. In particular, they discussed the possibility of holding air races in Budva in 2027, as well as a World Hot Air Balloon Festival in 2028 in several cities in Montenegro.
For Budva, hosting the European championship could be an additional factor in the development of event and sports tourism outside the peak summer season.
A Ukrainian citizen illegally crossed the border with Romania in a light aircraft and was detained in Suceava County after a call to the 112 emergency service, according to the Romanian Border Police. The official statement was published on the website of the Sighetu Marmației Territorial Inspectorate of the Border Police.
According to the Romanian side, the incident occurred on March 8 at around 10:30 a.m. near the village of Frătăuții Vechi in Suceava County. After receiving the signal, police and border guards arrived at the scene and identified the man by his Ukrainian biometric passport. Romanian authorities also found the aircraft in the garden behind one of the houses in the village.
According to the Border Police report, the man requested temporary protection in Romania due to the war in Ukraine. At the same time, Ukrainian border authorities were notified of the incident through the Porubne contact point.
Criminal proceedings have been opened against the Ukrainian citizen under two articles: for illegally crossing the state border and for operating an aircraft without the necessary certification documents.
According to the UNHCR and the Romanian government, there were 201,860 refugees from Ukraine in the country at the end of December 2025.
Aluminum prices showed increased volatility on Monday: earlier in the session, quotes updated their maximum since April 2022, but then began to decline.
The price of aluminum futures on the London Metal Exchange (LME) fell 1.1% to $3,387 per ton by 16:07 GMT. During the session, quotes rose 2.8% to $3,544 for the first time since April 2022.
Over the past week, aluminum has risen in price by almost 10%, recording its highest growth in three years, amid fears of supply disruptions from the Middle East, which accounts for about 9% of global production of this metal. Two aluminum plants, in Qatar and Bahrain, were forced to suspend deliveries due to armed conflict in the region.
“A prolonged war will hurt aluminum supplies,” said Gao Yin, an analyst at Shuohe Asset Management Co. According to her, consumers are building up aluminum stocks in case of such an event.
For a more detailed overview of global aluminum production from 1970 to 2024, watch the video on the YouTube channel Experts Club.
Attacks on data centers in the Middle East may accelerate the revision of global standards for digital infrastructure protection and open up an opportunity for Ukraine to offer the world its own experience of cloud service resilience during wartime, according to Anton Khvastunov, co-founder and CBDO of GigaCloud. He wrote about this in a blog for the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
According to the author, after the strikes on data centers in the region, the requirements for their protection may approach the standards for the protection of military facilities. This could include non-disclosure of location, new security protocols, additional certification, and mandatory data redundancy between multiple sites so that a direct strike on one facility does not completely shut down services.
Khvastunov notes that this situation creates a window of opportunity for Ukraine, as Ukrainian providers have already gained practical experience in operating and protecting data in wartime conditions. He emphasizes that dependence on a single, even very large, infrastructure provider makes data vulnerable, and therefore the market will move towards interoperability and distributed storage of critical information.
The blog also states that in the spring of 2025, the largest players in the Ukrainian cloud market created the Ukrainian Digital Sovereignty Alliance. According to the author, as part of this initiative, participants are working on a model in which the stability of critical digital infrastructure is ensured not by one provider, but by several major market players simultaneously.
The author believes that the topic of digital sovereignty will become increasingly important in Europe and other regions, and attacks on data centers may make data protection one of the key areas of the new technology policy. The full text of the blog is published on the Interfax-Ukraine website.
Source: Anton Khvastunov’s blog “The war for data centers has begun. What does this mean for the world and Ukraine” on the Interfax-Ukraine website.
The third-largest Ukrainian mobile operator, LLC “lifecell” (TM lifecell), increased its daily active subscriber base by 250,000 over the past two months amid blackouts, said CEO of Datagroup-Volia-lifecell (DVL), Mykhailo Shelemba, in an interview with Forbes Ukraine.
According to him, the total number of subscribers, taking into account the three-month active base, is slightly more than 9 million. This trend is observed due to the fact that a significant number of subscribers on the market have two SIM cards.
“With the start of blackouts, they begin to actively use the second one, but they are included in the three-month base in the next reporting period. The situation is volatile,” said the CEO of DVL.
He specified that the number of MNP subscribers who transferred their numbers to lifecell in January and February 2026 was about 120,000, including almost 20,000 on February 14-15.
“Throughout the history of the MNP service, more than 70% … transfer it to lifecell. Today, we have 927,000 subscribers who have transferred to lifecell in almost seven years of service. Of these, about 400,000 came in a year and a half after the deal (when French NJJ Xavier Niel bought lifecell from Turkish Turkcell). The dynamics are positive,” Shelemba noted.
According to him, based on relative estimates, lifecell has seen the best results in terms of number portability in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Rivne, Poltava, and Volyn.
Commenting on the 18.7% increase in revenue in 2025 to UAH 15.9 billion, the CEO of DVL noted that it is important for lifecell to grow faster than its competitors in terms of both the number of subscribers and revenue.
Shelemba explained the increase in the subscriber base by the fact that the company invested $20 million in the purchase and installation of batteries at base stations, as well as implemented a complex system for calibrating the operation of various technologies: 2G, 3G, 4G, in order to provide mobile Internet services during blackouts longer than its competitors, as traffic increased by 28% year-on-year.
According to him, the company also conducted tests using SES at base stations. At the same time, according to the operator’s estimates, the payback period will be longer than for other investments in the core business, which will not solve the problem of blackouts.
“We decided to spend this money on batteries, generators, and team equipment. We believe that subscribers will appreciate this focus more,” explained the CEO of DVL.
He also said that since the beginning of 2025, the DVL group has invested about $2 million in converting the network to PON, which has allowed 2,700 homes to be connected. According to him, the goal is to achieve critical mass coverage in cities: in Vinnytsia, for example, 80% coverage has already been achieved, but the transition to PON is actively underway in Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro.
“We are not building the network in pieces, we are covering at least microdistricts at once. The larger the city, the more difficult it is to do this quickly. The indicator in Kyiv is about 30%,” Shelemba added.
In an interview, he also advocated holding an auction for frequencies in the 700 MHz band for the deployment of 5G only when the state finds another 10 MHz of the band for the third operator, because now there are only 20 MHz, although 10 MHz can be found in the military.
“This process usually takes about a year. If they do it by the end of the year, it will be a record,” Shelemba said.
